Canelo: I will shock the world; I’m sure I will win

By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (42-0-1, 30 KO’s) says he knows Floyd Mayweather Jr’s fighting style well after studying him in great deal over the years, and Canelo feels very confident that he’ll beat him on September 14th in their big, big fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Canelo said this as quoted by Mediotiemp.com “I am going to prepare like never in my life because I will win that day and I will shock the world.”

I don’t see Canelo shocking the world in this fight, but I do think it makes for a nice quote. Canelo is basically Robert Guerrero 2.0. He’s going to take well before the fight, but then get badly exposed as a flat-footed fighter that can’t maneuver well around the ring and who comes forward in straight lines.

Canelo can prepare all he wants, but the guys that he’s preparing against aren’t Mayweather. Also, even if it was a Mayweather clone, Canelo would be training to lose because I think he’d be dominated daily in sparring sessions by Mayweather.

Canelo also talked about his weight and how he’s working hard to make sure he watches it carefully. Canelo knows that he can’t afford to get too heavy because he’s going to have to take off a great deal of weight as it is to get down to 152.
Canelo is going to have a real tough time with Mayweather because of his speed and movement. This isn’t going to be a fighter that is mainly throwing jabs at him the way that Austin Trout was doing in their fight last April. Mayweather throws jabs, but he’s not afraid to let his hands ago and he won’t be content to jab Canelo for 12 rounds.

Mayweather knows that just jabbing Canelo won’t guarantee the win. If Canelo is the one landing the hard shots, even if he’s two or three, he could have the judges giving him the decision like they did in his last fight against Trout.

Canelo landed very power punches in each round and was out-landed, but the judges were more impressed with his power shots than they were with Trout’s continuous jabs he was nailing Canelo with.

The weight could be a problem for Canelo because he really is getting close to the point where making 154 could be a real ordeal for him. He’s about to turn 23, he’s built like a super middleweight/light heavyweight, and yet he’s still fighting at 154.

Physically, Canelo is not the same fighter he was four years ago when he was fighting at welterweight. He’s put on a lot of weight and he’s now heavy and that’s good and bad when you’re struggling to make a weight class that is no longer suited for your body. It’s like putting on clothes that no longer fit you and wearing them all day.

It’s going to make you feel terrible. I see this as a problem for Canelo because he has to take off more and more weight to continue to fight at 154 against welterweights like Mayweather. Sooner or later, it’s going to catch up to Canelo where he’s going to be too weak from the struggle just to get down to the 154 pound division. In this case, Canelo has to get down to 152 and that’s going to be even harder for him.